a theory about yuji’s parent(s)
in which i provide empirical evidence that we have already met yuji’s mom. i haven’t seen this idea floated yet, but if it’s actually a common theory, sue me.
obvious spoilers under the cut
remember this incredibly throwaway line spoken by yuji when he introduces himself that everyone thought was just a joke?
it’s completely out of the blue. “I’m into girls like jennifer lawrence!” literally nobody asked you, yuji. and this is even before he meets todo who WOULD ask that type of question first time he meets someone, but todo says that because he had met- that’s right!
and again…
tsukumo yuki, who outright asks what type of girl someone is into as an introduction. just like how yuji would introduce himself by telling the other person what type of girl he’s into.
yes i’m positing that yuki is yuji’s mom based on these throwaway lines because i don’t think akutami gege is the type of writer to
do throwaway lines.
there’s also the fact that yuki is established as traveling everywhere. yuji’s parents are nowhere to be found. he doesn’t even see his parents as his parents. and why is yuki traveling everywhere?
she’s searching for a way to treat the cause of the neverending marathon of shamans dying for non-shamans to exorcise curses. she elaborates that there are two ways of tackling this issue.
when she talks about papa fushiguro:
ah, so she’s abandoned the heavenly binding curse route. but wait! this conversation took place around 10 years before the start of the series, which would mean yuji would’ve already been born by then.
i think yuji’s freakishly superhuman body comes from yuki’s personal research/experiments with heavenly binding curse. trying to create a superhuman like toji. obviously it didn’t succeed, as yuji couldn’t sense curses naturally like papa fushiguro could with his exact 0 cursed energy. “i’m chasing the second option for now.” it failed with yuji, so she’s moved on.
but there is some credence to yuki’s 2nd method. “make all of humanity able to control their cursed energy.” we’ve seen this firsthand with none other than todo, who was an otherwise average kid who could beat up a bigger person back in elementary school. in an extra:
now, there are other examples of shamans from non-shaman families becoming strong shamans, like geto. but i think it’s pretty revealing that gege
chose to show yuki meeting up with todo at an age when he didn’t seem like he was affiliated with the shaman world at all. i think todo was part of her research to turn humans into shamans.
gege also says that they’ve already decided on how to introduce yuji’s mom from an interview (translation credit to IDuckyx on twitter):